


Early Days

by TheBlindBandit



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-09
Updated: 2013-08-09
Packaged: 2017-12-22 21:02:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/917984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBlindBandit/pseuds/TheBlindBandit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Lieutenant and Amon, in the beginning. Mostly pre-slash Lieumon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Early Days

He used to think of himself as the most cynical man alive. Believing in nothing except the endlessness of people’s capacity for cruelty, all his thoughts and efforts remained focused on simply surviving from day to day.

There had been nobody to come home to in the evening, no wife to greet him after a long, exhausting day and no children to laugh at the return of their father - or look pleadingly and mournfully at him, asking why they did not have pretty new toys to play with, why their meals were scarce and their clothes threadbare. This, at least, he had never minded nor missed.

He had been nothing but a man with a will to do hard work in a time when there was no work to be had - not for him. Perhaps he could have gotten by, had he been able to shoot lightning out of his fingertips, or fling rocks the size of two men with a stomp of his foot and a wave of his arms. Perhaps then he wouldn’t have had to finally resort to drinking most of his days away, dousing the gnawing hunger in his belly with blissfully mind-numbing cheap liquor, forgetting the unfairness of it all.

Until, one particularly bad night, a man in a mask saw a glimmer of potential hidden somewhere within him, and with the simple gesture of taking his hand and urging him to follow changed his fate forever.

He excelled in the training they put him through, displaying a great talent for the recently outlawed art of chi-blocking and drawing to himself the gaze of the movement’s mysterious yet breathtakingly inspiring leader. Amon displayed particular interest in him every time he came to oversee the training sessions, drawing him aside often, simply talking to him for hours, long after everyone else had gone.

He was made to understand then that his life wasn’t his own anymore. For the first time in his forty years he belonged to something greater than himself.

 

* * *

 

It was truly awe-inspiring to see how the movement had grown from its humble beginnings among men very much like he had been, all those years ago. The grumblings of discontent were no longer heard solely in the poorer districts of the city. Illustrious names and members of very high society were pledging their support, discreetly but resolutely. Amon’s speeches were becoming more and more inflammatory as his actions were growing bolder, the city’s leadership and police force slow to respond to these provocations. After long and careful preparation they were almost on the brink.

The Lieutenant’s utter dedication to Amon and the movement was something that terrified their opponents, his supposed zealotry and unflinching obedience brought up in newspaper articles with increasing frequency. Among the Equalist ranks he was regarded with envy, respect and no small amount of fear, even though he would rather have cut off his own arm than raise it against one of their own.

Though fundamentally opposed, the viewpoints had one thought in common: an agreement that such a level of devotion to a cause - to the point of effacing his identity and name, not unlike their leader - was incredibly difficult to achieve, and then only with great personal sacrifice. The Lieutenant disagreed - he considered it the easiest thing he had done in his life, and any sacrifices had been made for him and without asking so long ago.

Amon lived and breathed the Revolution; this much was obvious to anyone who cared to look. When there were important plans to be made and pressing meetings to attend he would often run himself ragged, his Lieutenant ever by his side - worrying, but not quite.

It was hard to find a comfortable balance between his by now almost blind faith in this man who was becoming much more than a man and his steadily growing affection for the man who was, for all his extraordinary traits, still just one man.

Sometimes, when the slight, tired slump of Amon’s shoulders became more pronounced, the Lieutenant would place an almost brotherly hand on his arm. Sometimes he would let the hand linger far longer than was necessary, attempting to convey things he simply wasn’t equipped to put into words. Amon never acknowledged these touches, but he never shrugged the Lieutenant’s hand off, either.

It had taken him months to gather up the courage to touch Amon that terrifying first time. He couldn’t pinpoint the day Amon had turned from remote, admired, even revered leader to what could certainly be termed a friend - and he could most certainly not say when the thought of there ever being something more between them first occurred to him.

 

* * *

 

After months of tension of various kinds building up, things came to a head with a particularly bad police raid on one of their hideouts.

Their sources in the police had either failed or been ratted out, leaving them utterly unprepared and unsuspecting. Thankfully it wasn’t a very big rally, but the people present were all new recruits being welcomed into the fold - easy prey for highly trained benders.

The Lieutenant knew when a battle was lost before it had ever begun - there was no helping most of the crowd, the majority of them already firmly restrained. He lingered only to keep any particularly ambitious policemen from following Amon in hopes of capturing the notorious leader of the Equalists.

At the very last second, as he was turning to leave, a metalbender’s attack caused the Lieutenant’s electrical equipment to malfunction, the power source on his back overheating and burning through his clothes. He collapsed, unable to move, choking on the tear gas still gushing from several canisters on the floor.

Arrest, interrogation and incarceration were things all Equalists were well prepared for. With the growing attention given to them by the city’s police force most of them had come to accept it as an eventual certainty. The Lieutenant was barely holding onto consciousness, anticipating the particular feeling of metal cables slipping around his arms and immobilizing him. But it never came.

Instead he felt a very familiar presence at his side, efficiently unbuckling straps and ridding him of his now defunct equipment. An arm slipped under his and pulled him to his feet, and as he was half-dragged outside the only thing his eyes could focus on were the familiar lines of a painted mask. The air soon became clearer and cooler and the Lieutenant found himself lying on the backseat of a Satomobile. Only after feeling the jolt of the engine starting did he allow himself to pass out.

He regained consciousness in a bed, laid out on his stomach so as not to aggravate the burns on his back. They still hurt horribly, making him flinch with every even slightly deeper breath.

The first thing he saw upon opening his eyes was the same masked man who had dragged him to safety and possibly saved his life with that timely intervention. A man who had taken an enormous risk - for what? His mind was still in a befuddled haze, but he had to speak up.

"You shouldn’t have come back for me. The cost could have been too high. I’m not worth it. You are far more important than I am."

"And you are far more important than you realize,” Amon grasped his hand almost hesitatingly as he quietly continued, “I wouldn’t do very well without my most trusted Lieutenant. You have become…necessary. To the cause. And to me. Now rest. We can discuss this later, once you have recovered.”

"Amon," he rasped out, not trusting his voice with anything more, choosing instead to focus on the feeling of that hand clasping his as he fell back asleep.

When he awoke the following morning Amon was by his bedside, looking as if he had not moved the entire night, still firmly holding his hand. The pain that had seared his back the day before was all but gone, however, replaced by the uncomfortable tightness of healing skin. He had never before known injuries to improve so quickly - but, he reasoned, he had not known many things, before.

Amon’s gaze was steady on him, unusually open in its relief that he had woken up. The Lieutenant basked in the unfamiliar feeling this caused in him, together with the pleasant warmth enveloping his hand, coursing through his arm and into his chest.

All his trust was placed here, in the utter surety his leader could never let him down.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Hnery aka theslowestdrawfag. Originally posted on Tumblr.


End file.
